The Human Drive

What is it about the human condition that has us relentlessly yearning for meaning? It’s a theme, manifest throughout pages of literature that transform into social commentaries. The human soul is unremittingly searching for something to fill the void – for truth and knowledge. And lastly, it requires approval, a dangerous and longing approval.

Throughout all the different novels I read over the summer, it was a repeating theme, molded according to the story. In Frankenstein, Victor thirsts for knowledge and accomplishment hoping to allow inanimate object life. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby spends his whole life trying to gain Daisy’s approval by involving himself into a lavish life that he was sure she would find impressive. In The Alchemist, young shepherd Santiago goes on a journey to find his treasure and true destiny. It’s almost peculiar that this idea shows up in different time periods over and over again. If this type of literature shows up time and time again, it must obviously represent something about the nature of the human condition. Maybe it’s something we don’t realize because it’s so inherent, or maybe it’s something we choose to ignore because it’s so conspicuous. 

Authors mold things – they morph them and distort them to make their point. They conceive what others do not – they’re revolutionaries in human thought. It must reflect something to come up numerous times, it’s something to contemplate about the human self. In much literature, the humans are pursuing their own ambitions of finding themselves, or finding their own meaning, of attaining what others may normally not. This human drive, from our surroundings to our own selves becomes such a deep part of us, so existent, that literature it written to reflect it. I thought it was definitely interesting to notice these handpicked themes that ran through many examples of literature.

But this has not only come to reflect ideas in literary fiction; commercial fiction grabs these ideas to publicize these qualities of human nature as well. These ideas come in the form of a journey, a mission, or a quest. They come through emotional changes, societal changes, and the change of nature. In the Harry Potter series, main character Harry is always searching to find the truth about his parents, and he is in the process creating his own destiny, and in essence, his meaning. In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie confides in an eventual truth that he had been unconsciously searching for about his aunt. These books reflect our nature, in the way our nature reflects our being.

With no doubt, literature is subjective. But its subjectivity allows the human mind to think differently, innovatively, and contemplate the meaning of someone else’s work. While reading Frankenstein, I realized how I found similarities in other books, books I could have never imagined. When someone thinks of Frankenstein, they don’t think of The Alchemist, and when someone thinks of The Alchemist, they probably don’t think of Harry Potter.

I definitely found this distinct connection between novels worth noting…and I’ll definitely be noting the next time I’m wrapped up in a good book.